Export Links for Multiple Files

Topic:  Copy Public Links for a group of files 

            instead of right-click . . . paste . . . one at a time

First, you have to export the file names. It is not as easy as Select, Copy, Paste into text file. My files are MP3 and the audio files get pasted, not their file names. Also, I could not find a way to get a text clipping (OSX 10.6.8 Snow Leopard).

Method 1:  open Terminal.  at top level, ls -R to find your dropbox public folder. Then ls the folder contents and select / clip / paste to a text file. I find navigating in terminal to be difficult.

Method 2: use the FolderLister application (free for download). Drag a folder from Finder onto the FolderLister icon and you get a text file of those file names. Select and copy names. Paste into a text file.

Second: Change the file names to DropBox public shared names.

1.  Copy Public Link for one of those files in your DropBox Public folder. It has a "root" section pointing to your storage, and then the file name with all "spaces" changed to "%20".

     Highlight the "root" section up to the / before the actual file name. Copy to clipboard or paste it somewhere for future use.

2.  in TextEdit, use find and replace.

     First, type a space as the target to Find, and type %20 as the text to Replace. ReplaceALL. 

     Second, attach the "root" section of the DropBox reference to the front of each file name, manually line by line or by using some automation. Automator can do it, and in my case I used Find / Replace again. All my files in the folder start with the same string, for example "Chapter" or "IMG". Find "Chapter" and Replace "root"Chapter and it's done.